Last week I attended the BootstrapLabs Applied AI Conference in San Francisco. It was a world-class conference with speakers from leading providers of AI-solutions to Amazon, Alexa, Salesforce etc. There were about 750 attendees.

Here are my reflections:
• AI can be used for good, and not so good, purposes- it is up to us.
• Tech people will be replaced by tech (when tech becomes so simple that it works as a Lego).
• Speaker Carolina Garcia Rizo pointed out how the health industry need to let go of their old way of working bureaucratic in order to speed things up with AI (which is symbolic for every business field).
• Speaker Matt Swanson elegant pointed out that AI can lead to new jobs for humans (AI handles big data + humans handle quality = new jobs).
• AI can soon transform all voice communication into searchable data.
• Stop waiting for the future and start to make it happen.
• Speaker Sateesh Kumar pointed out that everything in the digital ecosystem needs to be fast, no meaning driving a Ferrari on gravel roads.

Three quotes from the conference speakers:

Will tech make us smarter or dumber?Partner Andrew Salzman, Chasm Group

The key is, not being all things for all people.Chief Strategy Officer Steve Carlin, SoftBank Robotics

If people suffers from hunger in the future, it’s a political problem.Chief Scientist Richard Socher, Salesforce

With AI, I would say that we are moving into a new society. In this new society we need to update not only our view on tech + human but also the ground foundation of what a society is in its construction (work, politics, consumption etc).
It may sound dramatic but at the same time it’s a great opportunity to change a lot in one generation for many generations to come (if this should happen politicians need to jump on the AI train fast – it will cost more to take the AI cab even if its a selfdriven cab).

It was great to mingle with attendees from NASA, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber, Tesla, IBM, MIT etc.